To shoot tight groups at distance, a load MUST be developed that is tuned for that individual rifle. What primer to use, what type and how much powder to use, and what bullet to use can be very overwhelming. This is a good area to pick brains with a reliable custom gunsmith. If your rifle has been accurized, the gunsmith who accurized it will have valuable suggestions for where to get started on developing a load tuned for that rifle. We develop new loads for our rifles using load groups of 5 shells each at 1/2-grain powder increments. If you are not comfortable with hand re-loading, do not despair--you can hire people to reload for you. Choosing the brass and primer is fairly basic--just make sure you get each item from the same lot. Choosing powder and bullet has to be determined at the shooting range. Consult reloading manuals to initially narrow the choice of bullets you plan on testing. Consult your gunsmith and knowledgeable shooters, such as bench-rest shooters, about powder choices. Once you have 2-3 different bullets to test, and the same number of powders to test, you can hand load 5 shot groups of each combination, at 1/2 grain increments. Go to the shooting range, and test fire each 5-shot group, off good-quality rests or sandbags, with a Clean and Cool rifle. Find the combo your rifle likes the best, and start dialing it in, in .10 grain increments of powder. The combo your rifle likes best will consistently have the tightest groups at 100 yards, or any distance.

Outline Under Construction

· resizing the shell
· factory loads will limit you to shorter distances
· tricks the bench-shooter pros use
· bullet choices: ballistic coefficient, sectional density, kinetic energy